Aftermath
by FrostedMelody
Summary: And in a twist of fate, they were mortal once more.
1. Zarc - The Defeated

**A/N: Hello, everyone, Frost here. I'm a fan of exploring alternative timelines and 'imperfect' resolution scenarios to see how things go down story-wise if just one** _ **tiny**_ **thing changes. In this particular case, the change here is "What if Reiji beat Zarc in episode 140 before the four cards could be properly used by Ray?"**

 **For now, I hope to explore the immediate aftermath of this change and possibly more about the characters of Zarc and Ray (especially the latter, given the incredibly small amount of screen time she got). If I manage to write a bit more on this fic in the future, I hope to explore their actions and mentalities in the new 'imperfect' world as well as possibly look back into their pasts before ARC-V occurred and perhaps experiment a bit with Duel Writing as well.**

The black dragon roared in anguish, eyeing the barely conscious bodies of the Duelists that had dared to challenge him upon his resurrection. One by one they had fallen, trying to call out to a name long forgotten, then turning to more vile words; coward, liar, pathetic scrap trying to assert his superiority.

As much as he hated to admit it, Zarc was mentally and physically wearing himself out after having to smash aside six Duelists in a row. His vague, fragmented memories of Yuya- no, his vessel had told him that they were some of the strongest duelists of each dimension, all bearing down on him to recall the boy they thought of as some sort of inspirational hero.

He'd told them that boy was gone. There was no verdant haired Yuya with flaring ruby eyes, no more dark-cloaked Yuto, no more brash-blue-balled Yugo, and no more violet scarred Yuri - they had all become one, restoring him. His true, original self.

Had they not wished it? Had those same duelists, telling Yuya, half of him, snapping, chomping, biting at the cage that held him back, to beat his final opponent - his other half, no less? His thoughts flickered to the one that had given that wish - a young man with greying hair, perhaps from sheer stress, his cold eyes flickering with determined flames as red as the glasses that A rimmed them. And that name... Akaba Reiji... it reminded him of the woman he knew.

 _The traitor._

"Sakaki Yuya!"

That name again. Zarc clenched his teeth, as a familiar, former... comrade, no, enemy, walked up to him, past the bodies of his defeated enemies, past the ruins of the Academy's laboratory, past the fallen body of his balding father, Akaba Leo. Zarc barely knew this man, and yet he already felt torn by two emotions - _resent_ and _trust_.

Yuya clearly had never made up his mind on this man, the leader of the Lancers. And given his weary state, Zarc realized he'd have to made that decision now.

"Akaba Reiji!" The black dragon roared, thrashing his tail about in a display of intimidation. "I praise you for getting this far."

The Lancer's reply only infuriated him more; Reiji didn't seem to be staring at him, but rather something behind him. Something, he had firmly stated over and over, that was long gone.

"Yuya." The man...no, the boy with glasses began, activating his Duel Disk and taking a combat pose. "I cannot win without you, you were the original pioneer of Pendulum!"

 _How dare you..._

"So please, Yuya, lend me your stre-"

"SILENCE!" The dragon roared his back, the green lines on his neck flaring up in rage as his wings exploded outward. In that moment, Zarc didn't give a damn how tired he was, how little he was thinking straight, how likely he could lose, because _he_ was damned tired of everyone treating him as if _he_ was the vessel and _he_ had no right to exist when they had brought him back in the first place!

 **ZARC:** **2000 - 0**

 **REIJI: 500**

No.

"Now, Yuya!"

No. No. NO.

"Come back to us!"

. .

"You've lost, Zarc! Now return Yuya-"

"NOT LIKE THIS!" He roared, striking back with every inch of his...fading? tail at the damn man, the damn thing that was making his body tear itself apart and his cards...wait, his cards...

They fluttered before his eyes, whispering malevolent disapprovals, disappointing litanies, words of abandonment, as the pictures on them turned white before his eyes.

The monster spirits were abandoning him. He had failed to be the messenger for their cause.

And their departure came the departure of his power. He could feel it being sucked out of them, turning his pitch black skins that vibrant, warm pink... something that... _traitor_ had loved.

If all he could do was fall, where would he go once he hit the ground?


	2. Ray - The Forgotten

She sprinted alongside Reira - no, her _little brother_ \- as they reached the battlefield. In another life, Serena-no, _she_ had been a child soldier, too, but their tenacity in any situation still managed to shock her. She needed to get there, as fast as possible, to stop _that monster,_ any lingering feelings from Yuzu, no, _her_ end be damned.

She was no longer Rin, playfully tinkering and tampering with the D-Wheel she had built with her...friend, nor was she Ruri, the woman who had tried to fight for a world of of peace... and without knowing it, a second chance for everyone.

She was Akaba Ray, and her plan had failed. All that was left was to stop that pastiche of a man she once knew one way or another.

What she had not expected was for someone else to finish the job before she got there. Zarc, in a more human, a more familiar form, crouched on the ground, gasping for breath as he frantically clawed at suspiciously blank cards... perhaps the Dragons had abandoned him too, out of some sort of fury over failing to convey their rage. And the man that stood victorious over him was the same one that had beat Reira; Akaba Reiji. A brother she neither knew, nor trusted.

Deep down, she remembered trusting Shuzo, her bright, red-headed step dad, and Shun, her strong, compassionate brother. But she had no idea what to make of Akaba Reiji; she'd dueled him, by proxy, exactly once. He was an anomaly - an alternate universe counterpart to _her,_ of all people, despite the fact she had reincarnated all on her own.

And that anomaly had changed things in a way she had not been prepared for.

"Did you use the cards?" She yelled, the words frantically escaping her mouth as she looked for any sign of them on the Duel Disks scattered across the battlefield.

"The cards?" His eyes narrowed, then widened in horror as he looked at Zarc, still whole, breathing, standing to his feet, his eyes narrowed in an almost bestial expressing as his wings shriveled, his claws dissipating as his hair shriveled from that beastly red to a far more familiar _grey_ , turning back into a duelist, a _human..._ but _not one split back into four, as the cards dictated he should have been._ "Oh, no..."

"Give me your Duel Disk." She immediately intoned. She had to stop this madness, before it repeated itself again.

"Another duel would take too long!" His steely eyes started back into her amethyst ones, burning past her purple bangs, lighting something, _anger,_ no _, urgency_ within her. "Sakaki Yuya is still in there somewhere. We need to reach out to him now!"

"It won't work unless he's split!" She retorted, running over to her fallen father, Professor Leo... no, just _dad_ , hoping she could wrestle the duel disk out of his hands and hope that somehow _the fact she was missing a Deck meant that he had the cards..._

"Yuya!" Reiji yelled, running away from her, towards Zarc. A part of her wanted to scream that name, too, a part of her named Hiragi Yuzu, burning with every fiber in her body...

But Hiragi Yuzu hadn't known the demon, and she-

She whirled around to see an almost-human Zarc slam his morphing foot on the ground, his wings falling off his body as a dimensional portal of bright green opened and he leaped in, snarling.

He had ran away to somewhere of the 4 corners of the world. And Reiji had been just two steps away from pinning him down.

"Damn it!" A weasley yell interrupted her shocked thoughts, as a blonde man dressed in garish red and white ran over to them - her fragmented memories identified the man as Sawatari Shingo - a former comrade. "What now?"

"We managed to depower Zarc, at least." Reiji muttered breathlessly. "That means the four dimensions are saved."

"If they're saved..." a coarser voice interrupted, as a dark teal-haired man - _Shun_... - stepped up, his ragged trench coat billowing in the winds, as she noticed the _green_ sky around them billowing and warping, eventually slowly morphing back into a much more familiar blue... "Then why are our dimensions not unfusing...?"

She gasped in horror, as the City soon billowed into view across the ocean she could vaguely recall staring out forlornly as the "Princess" of the Academy...a coastline she had started at from the other side, no less, as a complete nobody that that had dreamed of becoming the Queen of the Friendship Cup...

Memories of her four pieces flooded back and forth into her brain, washing her back and forth with all sorts of crazy thoughts, dreams, and hopes, but four words from them struck most clearly in her mind.

 _"Yuya!" "Yuto..." "Yugo?" "Yuri."_

She clutched her head and let out a heavy groan, as the world spun before her and turned into an indiscriminate grey blur clouded by shouts, some of them seeming like her name. She thought she could pick out her father _'_ s voice in the confusion, but the world was turning black to her.

"God damnit, Zarc." She managed to mutter, before the entire world became dark.

If all her plans had been for nothing, what kind of hell on earth was she going to wake up to?


	3. Zarc - Scavenger

**Hey everyone, Frost here. Just wanted to say thanks for the reviews so far! Let's see how Zarc is doing, in a place far from home...**

Thunder rumbled above the grey backdrop of an alleyway as he panted, taking labored steps towards the red and white striped overhang of an abandoned shop. It seemed in their haste to avoid massive chunks of flying debris (or perhaps, he grimly thought, being teleported straight into it), the original owners had forgotten to lock their doors.

 _I wonder if Maiami City's okay._

"Shut up." He barked to the little voice inside his brain, despite knowing full well that the only one left was his own. Having to absorb the feelings and emotions of four...vessels had left him with a lot of doubts, and he had to force down a thought of _"Sure beats all those vile glares at the Academy,"_ as he surveyed the mess around him.

He'd stumbled upon a shop that sold Duel Monsters cards, if the gaudy poster of the Blue Eyes White Dragon on the wall had been any indication. His flagrant smirk, however, turned into a disdainful sneer as he searched the cases and pried open an empty register with a crowbar lying on the floor. Anything of value, rare cards included, had been taken. The only reminder that this had been a card shop was in fact was the same dragon poster, which glared at him with jeering eyes as it advertised a new shipment of booster packs from Leo Corporation next week.

"So much for any monsters to summon." He grumbled aloud, resisting an urge to tear the poster off to satisfy some bubbling frustration. "It's not like I have the powers to materialize anyone again, eh guys?"

He was answered only by the wind's shrill whistle through through the sheets.

Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure how long he'd been out, after he'd escaped from Akaba Reiji and the Lancers. The few display TVs that weren't smashed in the city he'd awakened to only buzzed with news of how the fused Earth was now dealing with cities teleporting within miles of each other (he'd always wondered, in all four of his lives, why so many cities were so geographically far apart...), with populations often not entirely their own. Efforts by the world's governments to bring everyone home had been chaotic at best, and if this ransacked shop was any indication, many had taken the opportunity to try and go home into their own hands.

Just thinking about it made Zarc want to slam his fist down on the cold grey counter. This selfish, my-cause-first behavior was precisely why he'd hated humans in the first place. They ignored the painful cries and resentful thoughts of the monsters they'd created to do battle - only he had listened to their anguished pleas to show they world they were not tools. He had transcended his humanity, become one of them, having spent days and nights studying and modifying the genome sequencing technology that Akaba Leo had so painstakingly crafted to synthesize real bodies and minds...

...and the moment he, as a monster, had failed again, they'd left him to rot. A quick impulse from that thought caused him to search the pockets of Yuya's- _his_ torn, green pants for his own cards - they, too, were gone. The only evidence he had been a Duelist to begin with was the red Duel Disk on his arm, heavy scratched, but still capable of generating a simple solid block of energy for him to slap cards down on to materialize the deadly comrades he currently didn't possess.

A crash of footsteps and stomps shook him out of his thoughts, as he instinctively darted behind the counter. Without anyone around to regulate the use of Real Solid Vision, it made sense that people would begin to take advantage of their ability to generate living, breathing, combat lackeys. The thought made him burn with rage as he kicked over shelves and bashed open display cases; the crowbar could probably keep one of the small fairies at bay, but anything human-sized or larger and he'd be dead for real.

He'd already experienced death at the hands of _that woman_ , and he wasn't intent on having a repeat of that show; at least, if he could find any damned cards.

The pounding steps grew louder and louder. He was going to die, just another nameless human casualty in the mess that had been the the Dimension War.

"ARGH!" The anger he had been holding back finally exploded, and he launched his fists at the nearest thing he saw - a janitorial closet, its flimsily-attached metal door quickly giving way to his punch. "This is for a shitty childhood! All damn five of them!"

Another punch. "This one's for that Leo foiling my plans!"

Another punch. "For my monsters, _my friends_ that abandoned me!"

"And this one's for you Ray Akaba, you bit-"' his fist froze in midair, as his yellow eyes fell on a plastic deck box colored a plain shade of light grey, not unlike his hair. The name "Taylor" had been scribbled on with magic marker and he swore he could see a bite mark on one side of the box.

But most importantly, it had cards. Real, untouched Duel Monsters cards, somehow neglected in the chaos of whatever dimension-merging riot had covered this city.

Broken glass shattering at the front of the shop shattered his reverie. They were here. His best chance was probably to bluff his way out the situation, using some kid's deck full of weaklings from a race that had abandoned him. If he'd been told years, maybe even months ago that he'd have to tell egotistical lies to try and survive, he'd have punched the person telling him that in the face.

 _But hey, maybe it just came with the territory of being a damn human._

His Duel Disk flared to life, gleaming with red energy, and Zarc stepped out into the light.


	4. Ray - Opulent

Cold, white walls were the first thing that had greeted her when she'd awoken, followed by the face of her father. Both of her fathers, actually, exhibiting different faces but the same tears. She had bitten her lip and quietly asked to be alone, not willing to tell Leo to his face that she would've gladly stayed dead if it meant Zarc hadn't been given another chance to destroy the world.

 _He only wanted companionship. Like Yuya._ She shook her head, clearing her head of her own conscience - or more accurately, her conscience of another life. That need for companionship hadn't justified what his companions had made him do.

A bouquet of daylilies caught her attention; their golden petals shimmering before her tired violet eyes. She thought it odd for a moment - she once remembered telling a rival, _no, a close friend, before he went mad,_ that she loved daffodils the most, for some sappy reason about them representing rebirth and her trying to plant them on New Year's as a kid.

That memory was quickly replaced by a memory of Ruri's thirteenth birthday, when her brother Shun had gotten her a beautiful chocolate cake, featuring two hummingbirds with their beaks dipped deep into the golden tubs of frosted daylilies. He'd flashed a big grin and told her he had another surprise, given her a Monster card - but unlike the yellow and orange borders of the cards she usually used, this one had a beautiful jet black border to accompany the art of a woman dressed in a Raven's garb. In three other dimensions, she had received three other cards like it - one white, one purple, and one with the same old drab orange.

But it didn't matter now that they were beyond her reach, much like the presence of her brother. She shifted quietly in her hospital bed and wondered if she could bug a nurse to give her a remote to the television - assuming society hadn't imploded on itself, perhaps there was a replay of a Duel Monsters tournament she could watch.

 _"Chaos continues in Heartland as the refugees of the Xyz Dimension struggle to flock to their ruined home..."_

Beep.

 _"...mayor of Crash Town would like to declare a state of emergency, opening the vacated..."_

Beep.

 _"...Leo Corporation, currently led by Himika Akaba, hopes to aid the relief efforts..."_

Beep. She sighed, and turned her head quietly to the pink Duel Disk located below the bouquet of flowers. A neatly written note lay on top of it, attached with a sticky.

 _Ray. Please call me when you are feeling better. We should talk. - Himika Akaba_

"You don't even remember me, do you, mother?" Ray sighed softly, as she gently folded up the note and let it slide from her hand into the wastebasket. The time she'd spent in Reira's mind as a spirit had told her enough about the mother who had cuddled her after her early losses in the Junior League, her long rosy locks falling around a slightly knitted brow. In the present, her steely expression and gaudy hair buns had made her seem almost like the evil queen out of a cliched fairytale.

"Perhaps they'd remember you better if you spoke to them." The curt remark broke her of her silence, and she turned her head to face the sharp red-rimmed glasses of Reiji Akaba, the brother she'd barely known. He'd just entered the room, sliding off his rain-soaked hoodie onto a chair.

Her fist clenched as a thought echoed in her mind with Serena's lowered pitch. " _Like you're one to talk_." Ray bit her lip, and instead tried to concentrate on the logical reasons for her silence - she hadn't become the Queen of Duelists in the previous United Dimension through reckless, hot-blooded plays.

"I'm not sure what to say to my family yet, Reiji. The girls-they-...well, _I_ had only turned into them a few days ago, and the united dimension is still in chaos. Aren't there more pressing issues?"

He adjusted his glasses, and in the brief moment she can see behind their shades, a flicker of concern - almost like the one she'd seen him hold a few fateful days ago as he'd watched Yuya howl in pain as Zarc began to revive.

"I understand that, but you've been unconscious for a few days and everyone who previously knew you did come to visit. They really do want to know if you're okay."

"You mean they want to know if Yuzu, Serena, Rin, and _Ruri_ are okay." She stresses the last remark. If this was Shun, he'd definitely have shifted uncomfortably and looked away - she knows, somehow, that he'd beat up the entire Heartland Academy for her if he wanted to, but nothing short of that disgusting Parasite Fusioner making her swing at him like a puppet would make him harm a hair on her head.

But Akaba Reiji just swallows quietly and keeps his cool. If he has any emotional cards, he holds them close to the heart. Not unlike her, until someone had gone and blown all those careful calculations out of her heart for two years that now seemed from another life. She guesses that he hasn't had anyone like that; his eyes still hold a glint of determination that has long vanished from what she remembers of their father's sorrowful, desperate visage.

"I... cannot really speak for them regarding that." This is the first time she's ever heard him pause. As Serena, the Reiji she remembers was a firm yet charismatic commander, willing to go to the deep end to stop Leo's mad plan while keeping his head planted on his shoulders when confronted with manipulative men like Roget. Now, he's carefully choosing his words, masking a tone of uncertainty that sounds suspiciously like a whisper of _I can't read you, and I'm not sure if I can trust you._

"However, to be frank, I can understand if you want to take your time to rest and recover."

"You all need my assistance. Our mutual enemy is still out there." She interjects, only to be surprised when he shakes his head.

"No. We can take it from here, if Zarc has lost all his power. We don't even know if you're even in good physical health, given the circumstances of your resurrection."

She responds by sliding out of the bed and answering his steely gaze with her own burning stare as her dark red hair falls around her shoulders. He, like another silver haired man she remembers from long ago, _before he was twisted beyond recognition_ , isn't really sure how to deal with her, once the surface details have passed and everyone's tried their best to make sense of her presence in the world, except this time, instead of being the first female Queen of Games, she's the savior that wasn't, the jailor whose keys were taken from her in a mad bid to open a Pandora's box.

And just like back then, it looks like she'll have to take the first step towards fixing everything again, or at least putting it back to some sense of normal. A plan begins to form in her mind as she strides towards the last gift on the little bedside drawer - a set of purple jeans and a light blue t-shirt, paired with a white jacket that makes her think of a trimmed labcoat.

Reiji seems to understand and immediately moves toward the doorway to let her change; for now, he seems willing to be her ally. "So what's your next move, sister?"

"You Show Duel School, brother." She replies curtly, pressing her thumb firmly against the Duel Disk's screen to bring up the card shop app. "I want to see what Shuzou and the children think of my style of Dueling."

Noting a deposit of credits from her father's name, she silently thanks him and orders a few booster packs based on whatever research she can manage to do while they depart the hospital. She wasn't ready to confront him yet, but if she was going to confront the world, she was going to need her tools of the trade.


End file.
